Bug Ferret Anatomy (Patreon)

Bug Ferret anatomy!! They're like a big worm pretending to be a vertebrate! I'll write in more detail when I eventually polish this up into a post, but some cool pointers:

- The calciferous gland converts excess CO2 in the blood into calcium carbonate, which can be excreted as solid waste. This helps bug ferrets cope with low oxygen environments underground.

-The nerve cord in ferrets IS the brain... there's a sensory processing ganglion in the head but most higher-level thinking takes place in the mid body.

-They have a secondarily evolved endoskeleton... way back their ancestors had an exoskeleton they molted from, until their final molt, which they grew skin over. The age at which this "final molt" happens got pushed back into the embryonic stage for extant ferrets, who are now left with skin, hair and fat on the outside of their skeleton but almost all of their skeletal muscles on the inside surface.